Product “food” chains exist for many businesses for the lifecycle of a product/machine from its manufacture through its use and maintenance until its end of life. S-I-P-D-U-O or SIPDUO is one example of a model of such a food chain, in which a Supplier S delivers a part of a device (e.g., machine) to an integrator I. I integrates a sub-system of the device and delivers to a producer P. P produces the device and sells it to a dealer D. The dealer installs the device at the user, U, who operates the device. In some cases, an operator O is needed to collect data from hundreds of devices, or even more. However, one or more of the SIPDUO parties might consider at least some part of this data to be its own. For example, a supplier S wants access to data that the Supplier believes to be its own, but one or more of the other parties might block this attempt. In another case, a user U may desire, or believe the user has the exclusive rights to all data for the device. Or perhaps the operator O is responsible for handling the data and desires statistics on the data, for example, to meet Service Level (SL) objectives or requirements, but cannot access it.
Furthermore, in devices including a plurality of sub-components, for example machines including a plurality of parts, it is often difficult to reliably track the state of the various sub-components and/or to manage them. This inability to reliably track state information can make it difficult to determine the cause of a performance issue or failure of a sub-component of the device of which it is a part, for example, to determine the party that caused a problem and when (e.g., during the manufacture or use) the problem was caused. Even if information is tracked throughout the manufacturing, transport, installation and use of a device, such information may be susceptible to future manipulation, making such information inherently unreliable. Not only does this unreliability make it difficult to determine the source of problems within devices, it makes it more difficult to effectively manage the devices.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a mechanism to reliably track and maintain data for components of systems in instances where components are provided and integrated by different, often unrelated, suppliers. It also is desirable to enable parties, for example, parties of a product food chain, to reliably engage in transactions involving such data, for example, sharing and/or trading such data, either informally or on a contractual basis, e.g., as part of a license or sale.